


part of the team

by rinthegreat



Series: Established Shance in a "Canon"verse [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Langst, M/M, Season 3, shangst, shiro angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 20:30:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11859114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinthegreat/pseuds/rinthegreat
Summary: After Black rejects him, Shiro spends the night alone. Or at least, that's how the night starts.Set post season 3 episode 6





	part of the team

**Author's Note:**

> this is a gift for [gumisae](http://gumisae.tumblr.com/) as a thank you for ko-fi! Thank you dear! Your art is amazing, as are you. <3
> 
> Un-betaed but at least edited. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Edit: I removed the nickname "Kashi" as I felt it stood out in a bad way in this series. In the previous fic I removed "kitten" as well. I have nothing against those nicknames in this ship, but they don't fit very well in this canonverse series.

The knock on his door is soft, hesitant. Shiro knows it can’t be Keith from that alone. In fact, judging by the time of day – midnight, ship time – he knows exactly who it is. For a second, Shiro considers staying silent; Lance won’t knock twice. But his bed is cold and lonely, and he’s been trying in vain to fall asleep for the past several hours.

“Come in.”

The door slides open, and sure enough, Lance is standing on the other side. He looks exhausted, pajamas wrinkled and hair mussed. He’s not wearing his face mask again, something Shiro registers he hasn’t seen since before he disappeared. Again.

Lance shuffles forward, slippers dragging on the ground, just far enough to let the door close behind him. “I didn’t wake you up, right?”

Before, Shiro had felt like he’d almost peeled back all the layers on Lance. Almost gotten past the false bravado and over the top flirting to reach the core of Lance. He’d worked his way through insecurities Lance harbored, forcing him to see Shiro as just a person rather than his hero.

Now, they’re back to square one. Lance is standing there, biting his lower lip which is trembling so hard, Shiro can see it from here. He’s visibly uncomfortable and all the walls Shiro had worked so hard to tear down are back up.

As is the shaky yet still visible fear that Shiro’s going to turn him away.

“Lance…” He breathes, but rather than making Lance relax, his shoulders stiffen. Shiro swallows, clenching his fist. He won’t do this to Lance. He can’t. “Come here.”

Relief shines bright on Lance’s face, and he shuffles forward. Before he can kick off his slippers, Shiro wraps his arm around Lance’s waist and pulls him down. It startles a giggle from the paladin, and Shiro’s heart positively _glows_. “Why didn’t you come earlier?” He asks, even though he already knows the answer.

“You disappeared right after the briefing. I assumed you wanted to be alone.”

He did want to be alone. Still does, actually. But being with Lance is different than being around people, Shiro’s discovered. Lance has burrowed himself into Shiro’s skin, becoming a part of his very soul.

Those feelings are too intense to share, though. So instead he says: “I always want to be with you.”

Lance huffs, not quite a laugh. He doesn’t say _you’re such a sap, Shiro_  the way Shiro wants him to. The way he would have merely a few months prior. “I want to be with you, too,” he assures instead, sounding far too serious and sincere compared to the bright sunshine boy Shiro had fallen in love with.

Shiro loves him this way too.

He just wishes he hadn’t hurt Lance this bad. That his disappearance hadn’t cracked a rift between them that Shiro can’t even begin to heal. “Couldn’t sleep?” He prompts, masochistic side rearing its ugly head.

“I can’t sleep without you there,” Lance admits.

Shiro’s struck dumb by the thought of Lance, wasting the nights away staring at the ceiling. The pale skin, the dark circles, all of it makes sense to Shiro now. He’d suspected before that he’d had something to do with Lance not taking care of himself, but he’d thought at least some of the blame landed with holding the fate of the universe on his shoulders.

But that had been the case before he’d left too, and Lance had still shone brighter than the sun.

“You should’ve come earlier.”

“I could tell you were upset.” A flash of the old Lance appears with those words. Shiro can practically see the stubborn set of his jaw.

“It doesn’t matter,” Shiro tells him. Because it doesn’t matter. His issues…they aren’t important in the grand scheme of things. He’ll get over it. He’ll learn to live.

Lance, however, doesn’t seem to agree. He snorts, and Shiro can sense the resentment in that sound from here. “It doesn’t matter, huh? I remember you telling me that my feelings were _always_ valid.”

“They are –“

“Then what makes you think yours are any different?”

Lance shifts, turning himself so he and Shiro are face-to-face now, and Shiro can _see_ the set of his jaw. Just the way he’d imagined. Lance is going to force Shiro to talk one way or another, and Shiro _really_ wants to sleep. So he doesn’t fight it. “Because they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.”

“And my insecurities do?”

“Lance, you have bigger issues to deal with than –“

“Than my boyfriend being upset? Are you serious?”

Shiro draws his hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose between metal fingers. He doesn’t want to fight with Lance. He wants to cuddle with him, maybe kiss a little bit, and see if Lance’s presence alone is really enough to coax him to sleep. “Lance –“

“Don’t.”

“Stop cutting me off.”

“Stop deflecting and just answer the question.”

His fingers curl into a fist against the sheets. “I’m not part of the team anymore,” he admits through gritted teeth.

Lance, at least, looks taken aback. He blinks, mouth open in a silent O as he visibly searches for words. “Is this about the black lion? Because I’m sure that was –“

“Just a fluke?” This time Shiro cuts Lance off. “Lance, I was taken by the Galra. Again. They did god knows what to me – I certainly don’t remember a damn thing – and now I have a weird headache that won’t go away and a lion who won’t accept me.” He takes a breath before admitting: “I think they reprogrammed me to hurt the team.” _Hurt you_ , he leaves unsaid.

“Then why did you agree to let me sleep with you?” Lance asks, voice softer than before.

Shiro chokes out a sob. “Because I’m tired. I want the headache gone, Lance. I think you’re the only one who can do it, and I just…” _Love you so goddamn much I can’t exist without you_.

“Okay.”

Shiro blinks. Lance’s face is softer than before. Somehow, tonight had turned from him comforting Lance to Lance comforting him. He can’t even take care of his boyfriend properly – he has to make everything about him, doesn’t he? “Okay?”

Lance nods, and Shiro feels a gentle finger touch his cheek. “I get it. Maybe not exactly but…while you were gone we…reshuffled a little.”

“I noticed.”

Lance cracks a small smile. “It wasn’t that easy. I mean we all tried to take over for you, but right after Black chose Keith” – Shiro winces – “we got a distress call. And when I got to Blue…she had her particle barrier up.”

“What?” Blue and Lance had had the closest bond of all of them. Shiro had been more shocked to learn that Lance had taken the role of the red paladin than that Keith had taken his place. “Blue rejected you?”

The smile on Lance’s face turns wry, a sick mockery of his usual expression. “She wouldn’t even talk to me.”

“But you have Red now.”

“I guess.” Lance shrugs as much as he can while lying on his side. “It’s different with Red. Feels more like I’m a guest in someone else’s lion than in my own.”

Shiro doesn’t know what to say to that, so instead he reaches up and threads his fingers through Lance’s. “You’ll always be the blue paladin to me.”

“And you’ll always be the black one to me.”

“But I’m _not_ , Lance. Black wouldn’t respond –“

“Shiro,” Lance interrupts harshly. His voice immediately softens to something barely over a whisper. “Shiro, you said so yourself: they did something to your head. You don’t trust yourself. Do you really think the head of Voltron would trust himself to be piloted by someone who can’t even trust themself?”

Shiro’s jaw snaps shut. He hadn’t thought of that before. “But the Galra _did_ do something to me,” he insists eventually.

“No. They _probably_ did,” Lance counters. He barrels on before Shiro can speak again. “Which is why we need to figure it out. The sooner we can get you back to normal, the sooner you can get back to your lion.”

This. This is why he loves Lance. Because Lance has a way about him, a way of simply _existing_ that calms Shiro down. He promises himself, right then and there, that no matter what the Galra did to him, he’ll fight to his last breath to keep Lance safe.

“Thank you,” he breathes finally, pulling Lance closer.

Soft hair tickles the underside of his chin as Lance shifts, getting comfortable. Shiro wraps his arm around him, pulling Lance closer. “Get some sleep,” he whispers. “That’s why you came here in the first place.”

This time, Lance actually does chuckle. “I could say the same to you.”

For the first time since he escaped the Galra, Shiro actually sleeps through the rest of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://rinthegreat.tumblr.com/) where you can scream about vld and shance with me <3  
> [writing tag](https://rinthegreat.tumblr.com/tagged/cat-writes-fanfiction) where you can see fic previews, drabbles, and updates


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